GovWire

Purpose of a safety case

As an accountable person, you must keep and update certain information about the building and the parts of the building you are responsible for.

The information forms part of the buildings safety case, which is used to manage the risk of the spread of fire or structural failure.

The principal accountable person must use the safety case to prepare a safety case report.

Information you must keep

You must keep information for the safety case up to date and in an easily accessible, digital format. If you stop being an accountable person, you must pass your safety case information to the accountable person who replaces you.

Basic building information

You must keep basic information about the building, which includes:

• the buildings height and the number of floors, residential units, and staircases
• when the building was built
• relevant design codes or standards
• building control body completion certificates (where available)
• plans of the building

You must also keep information about shared facilities like car parks and a description of the wider area, which can include:

• nearby high-rise residential buildings, schools, or care homes
• transport routes like roads or railway tracks

Newer buildings

Buildings built after 2005 that involved more than one contractor will have a health and safety file (legislation.gov.uk).

The owner of the building keeps this file when construction is completed. If ownership of the building changes, you must pass the health and safety file to the new owner.

Your buildings construction

You must keep information about how your building was built, and the methods and materials used, for example:

• a description of the primary load-bearing system, for example, pre-cast planks on a steel frame
• a description of the stability system, for example, concrete shear walls
• the materials used on the outside of the building
• the roofing material
• the insulation material
• access and escape routes
• a description of the fire compartmentation

Refurbishment and other changes

You must keep information about any building work or refurbishment that may affect building safety risks in your part of the building. This can include work on the whole building, common areas or individual parts like residential units.

Examples of the type of information you need to keep are:

• the completion certificate for the refurbishment work
• updated plans of the building
• specification or certification for important materials like replacement cladding

Resident profile

You should keep information about your residents that can have an impact on building safety risks and emergency plans, for example, residents:

• who cannot evacuate without help
• whose first language is not English

You should ask your residents to provide you with this information. You can use various ways to collect this information including post, email or meetings.

Services and utilities

Your building may have utilities like electricity, water, gas, telephone, and internet. You should keep information about:

• where the supply enters the building
• where and how it can be isolated
• the name and contact details of the supplier
• what the suppliers responsibility for maintenance is
• who carries out the maintenance and repairs

Your building plans should show, for example:

• plant rooms and incoming supplies
• identify pipes and cable routes

Your building may have cables, ducts, and pipes that pass through fire compartment barriers. If this is the case, you need to get assurance that fire stopping has been completed to an appropriate standard. You can find this information from specifications, certifications, and surveying examples.

There might be services close to your building like an electrical substation nearby or communications equipment on the roof. Even if you can not control or access these areas, you should still keep information about how they can affect the buildings safety.

Assessing risks

You must assess the building safety risks for the parts of the building that you are responsible for. Keep a record of every risk assessment.

You must carry out risk assessments:

• at regular intervals
• when you think the current assessment is no longer valid
• when asked to do so by the Building Safety Regulator

Structural safety

You must keep information about your buildings structural condition.

Keep information about:

• any previous structural surveys or inspections
• how you will manage any materials or techniques with known challenges like large panel systems
• any existing programmes of inspection or monitoring relating to structural safety

Managing risks

You must describe the measures you have in place to prevent building safety risks from happening and reduce the severity of any incident that does happen.

You need to keep a record of all the safety measures, which includes:

• their design and installation
• how they control building safety risks
• their current condition
• how they are managed and maintained
• any impact on them from building alterations or refurbishments

Safety management system

You must plan, organise, control, monitor and review the measures you have taken to manage the safety risks in your parts of the building. The way to do this is referred to as a safety management system.

You do not have to follow any particular management system. If there are multiple accountable persons for a building, you do not have to use the same management system, but you should coordinate with each other when necessary.

Missing information

To find missing building information you can check:

• archived paper-based storage
• planning authority records
• building control records

You should check that any historic documents remain valid, particularly if your building has been refurbished or altered.

You must keep a record of the steps you have taken to find missing information. You can use it to demonstrate what you have done to find missing information to the Building Safety Regulator.

Finding safety issues

When gathering information about the building, you may find problems, for example:

• discovering that a control measure thought to be in place is not in place
• investigations identifying unresolved issues with control measures

If any work is not completed when the principal accountable person needs to submit the buildings safety case report, you should provide an action plan to show what work needs to be done, how it will be done and the timescale for completion. The action plan should also include details of any interim measures to control the risk until the work is complete.

Other legislation

You must still comply with other law that applies to buildings, including health and safety, fire and housing requirements.